off.

Varying our processions in the Champs Elysees were less formal
excursions in the Jardin de Luxembourg; and as the picture-gallery in
the palace was opened gratuitously on certain days of the week, we were
allowed to wander through it, and form our taste for art among the
samples of the modern French school of painting there collected: the
pictures of David, Gerard, Girodet, etc., the Dido and AEneas, the
Romulus and Tatius with the Sabine women interposing between them,
Hippolytus before Theseus and Phaedra, Atala being laid in her grave by
her lover--compositions with which innumerable engravings have made
England familiar--the theatrical conception and hard coloring and
execution of which (compensated by masterly grouping and incomparable
drawing) did not prevent their striking our uncritical eyes with
delighted admiration, and making this expedition to the Luxembourg one
of my favorite afternoon recreations. These pictures are now all in the
gallery of the Louvre, illustrating the school of art of the consulate
and early empire of Bonaparte.

Another favorite promenade of ours, and the one that I preferred even to
the hero-worship of the Luxembourg, was the Parc Monceaux. This estate,
the private property of the Orleans family, confiscated by Louis
Napoleon, and converted into a whole new _quartier_ of his new Paris,
with splendid streets and houses, and an exquisite public flower-garden
in the midst of them, was then a solitary and rather neglected Jardin
Anglais (so called) or park, surrounded by high walls and entered by a
small wicket, the porter of which required a permit of admission before
allowing ingress to the domain. I never remember seeing a single
creature but ourselves in the complete seclusion of this deserted
pleasaunce. It had grass and fine trees and winding walks, and little
brooks fed by springs that glimmered in cradles of moss-grown,
antiquated rock-work; no flowers or semblance of cultivation, but a
general air of solitude and wildness that recommended it especially to
me, and recalled as little as possible the great, gay city which
surrounded it.

My real holidays, however (for I did not go home during the three years
I spent in Paris), were the rare and short visits my father paid me
while I was at school. At all other seasons Paris might have been
Patagonia for any thing I saw or heard or knew of its brilliant gayety
and splendid variety. But during those holidays of his and mine,